Hard to imagine a toast which encompasses more. This is John Steinbeck’s description of the open-hearted hospitality he enjoyed, together with his friend the photographer Robert Capa, when they were invited to dine with ordinary people on their month-long trip to the Soviet Union in 1946.

‘The mother of the family made the first toast. She said, “May God bring you every good.”  And we all drank to her. We ate hugely, and it was very good.’

Source: John Steinbeck, A Russian Journal, with photographs by Robert Capa (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999 (1948)), p. 81

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